As it happens, his former chief of staff Arminka Helic has just been elevated to the peerage. She is a Bosnian Muslim who is reported to have persuaded Mr Hague to adopt a more critical stance towards Israel, whether for using "disproportionate" force or building "illegal" settlements. Mr Hague has loyally supported the government during the latest Gaza conflict, but we shall soon see what his former adviser has to say when she takes her seat in the House of Lords — a chamber which also includes Lord Ahmed, who last year claimed that he was jailed for going to Gaza to support Palestinians, blaming "my Jewish friends who own newspapers and TV channels". (He was briefly imprisoned for dangerous driving after being involved in a fatal car crash.)
What makes Baroness Warsi's apophastic attack on the Tories so embarrassing is that she was promoted by David Cameron as the party's unofficial "minister for Muslims". Now, because he refused to obey her over Gaza, she has written off his hopes of winning the Muslim vote — and hence of an outright majority: "We've probably left it a little too late to start taking this part of the electorate seriously." The Prime Minister is being told that unless he distances himself from Israel and starts toeing the Islamist line on Gaza, he will lose next year's general election. This is blackmail.
Mr Cameron should resist such pressure. It is true that there is a significant Muslim vote in almost every one of the Conservatives' target seats. Still: Labour dumped Tony Blair after he backed Israel's intervention in Lebanon — but they lost the election anyway. Ed Miliband has consistently denounced Israel, and not just over Gaza — but he is much less respected as a leader than Mr Cameron.
The next few months will test the Prime Minister's nerve, as Britain plays its part in defending Western civilisation from Mitteleuropa to Mesopotamia, from the Jordan to the Don. Israel, as one of the few countries that is not afraid to fight back, is an important ally. At all costs, Britain should shun the French example: the Socialist government there condemned Israel to appease Muslim opinion at home and abroad, while anti-Semitic outrages on the streets of Paris brought shame on France.
After his speech over the dead Caesar, and having whipped up the mob by the black magic of apophasia, Antony soliloquises: "Mischief, thou art afoot, /Take thou what course thou wilt." We should beware the mischief unleashed in the wake of Gaza.
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